Questions tagged [optics]
Optics is the study of light, and its interaction with matter. It includes topics such as imaging systems, fiber optics, lasers, quantum optics, and more.
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What makes diffraction spikes move with the focus?
This is a bit of a follow up on The Bahtinov focusing mask and it came with this question on Astronomy. But I think the effect can also be observed when looking through a hazy atmosphere or a stained ...
user265136
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How can daylight have a higher colour temperature (e.g. 6500 K or D65) than sunlight in space?
Supposedly, daylight at midday has a colour temperature of 6500 K. This reference is also the standard for calibrating computer screens (that's how I fell into this). However, outside the atmosphere ...
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Images formed by a pair of plane mirrors
I've been taught that if a point-sized object is placed between two plane mirrors at an angle theta with each other, then the number of images formed is $360^{\circ}/\theta$ or $360^{\circ}/\theta - 1$...
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What is the energy loss in total internal reflection?
In total internal reflection light inside a dense medium reflects from the boundary to a less dense medium. Since by Snell's law there is no allowed refracted ray, all energy continues along the ...
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Why does sunlight on these windows form caustics with a seemingly hyperbolic pattern?
I noticed these caustics outside my office about a month ago and took pictures: one facing towards the sun and one facing towards the reflective surface (a set of double-paned windows).
The seemingly-...
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Complex part of second-order susceptibility in nonlinear optics
In optics, the absorption of photons by a material can be described by considering the material's susceptibility. For linear absorption (involving a single photon), we think about the imaginary part ...
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Explanation for possible interference on a home mirror?
I've noticed that a few peculiar things about home commercial mirrors that aren't present with industrial/scientific mirrors.
This is one of the mirrors I used.
With the mirror like the one above, ...
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Are there yet Optical Magnetic Mirrors (OMMs) which reflect via interaction with the magnetic field?
update 2021: As the question has remained unanswered for five years and the field of optical metamaterials has advanced, I think this question can be revisited.
The most familiar mirror relies on ...
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Why is an exciton only observed when we excite to the conduction band and not to other electronic level inside the bandgap?
Excitons can be observed when we excite electrons to the conduction band.
I don't know about excitons being observed when we excite the electrons to an electronic level that would eventually be in ...
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Explaining phase shift from a half-silvered mirror
I am trying to understand why light undergoes a phase shift when reflecting off one side of a half-silvered mirror, but not the other side.
This Wikipedia page and this answer both give the following ...
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Spatial wave-function of a single photon and its measurement
In the last decade there were several papers claiming that they've measured a "transverse quantum state" / "quantum wave-function" / "spatial Wigner function" of a single photon:
Measurement of the ...
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How does the fractional Fourier transform apply to an out-of-focus imaging system? Do we use the fractional distance to the focal plane?
In Fourier optics it is sometimes convenient to think of lenses as "Fourier transformers". For an imaging system between two planes with a pupil in the center, the amplitude in the pupil is ...
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Books recommendation to understand Quantum Confined Stark Effect
I am starting a PhD on a photonic component involved with QCSE. The problem is that I have a Master degree in electronical engineering, not in fundamental physics, and I need to understand the QCSE in ...
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Simulation of a dispersive crystal mirror
I am trying to simulate a simple setup where I have a point source of broadband light whose light is incident upon a spherical crystal at a central angle $\theta_i$. Assuming Bragg diffraction some of ...
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Deriving the non-paraxial form of Rayleigh criterion
Background
The Rayleigh criterion of imaging resolution says that two incoherent point sources are barely resolved by a diffraction-limited system with a circular aperture where the center of the ...
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